KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — It made sense perfect sense that New York Yankees rookie Chase Whitley pushed all the credit toward Brian McCann after earning the first win of his big league career.

After all, the veteran catcher not only guided Whitley though a punchless Kansas City lineup, he also drove in three runs with a timely double in the third inning of what turned into a 4-2 victory over the Royals on Friday night.

“He told me a game plan before the game and we were able to execute it,” Whitley said. “Just follow whatever he has in store because that guy has everything. He does.”

Brian Roberts also drove in a run for the Yankees, who finally gave their young right-hander some support. Whitley (1-0) had allowed five earned runs in his first four starts, and left two of them with the lead, only for his team to saddle him with a series of no-decisions.

Of course, McCann helped take care of that with his bases-loaded double.

“That’s a huge hit,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s a tough at-bat. He fouls off a lot of tough pitches, a change-up, a curveball, a real slow curveball, and he got a ball up in the zone and it turned into a double.”

Dellin Betances worked around a double by Alcides Escobar in the eighth, and David Robertson retired Salvador Perez with runners on first and second in the ninth to earn his 14th save.

Jeremy Guthrie (2-6) wound up with the loss, once again getting very little support. Perez and Lorenzo Cain drove in the Royals’ runs.

“I think I threw the ball all right except for the third inning when I gave up a couple of hits,” Guthrie said. “I had McCann down to two strikes and couldn’t finish him off. I threw a couple of pitches trying to finish him off and wasn’t able to do that.”

Making their only scheduled visit to Kauffman Stadium, the Yankees won their second straight on the heels of a four-game losing streak. They also established some much-needed confidence as they began a 10-game trip that will take them through Seattle and Oakland.

The Royals figured they were catching a break during the four-game series by missing Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka, who pitched his way to a 2-1 win over the Athletics on Thursday.

Whitley made them wish they were facing the Japanese star.

Mixing his fastball with an effective slider and change-up, the former 15th-round draft pick allowed five hits while striking out three without a walk in the longest start of his career.

Whitley had never lasted more than five innings in the big leagues.

“Yeah, tonight’s a big night. We’re all happy for him,” McCann said. “He’s worked really hard to get here, to do this.”

The Yankees took a 1-0 lead on a single by Roberts in the second inning, and Kansas City promptly answered when Perez followed a double by Alex Gordon with his own RBI single.

New York quickly regained the lead in the third.

Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner led off with singles, and Guthrie grazed Mark Teixeira on the shoulder to load the bases with one out. That’s when McCann connected for his double to left, giving the Yankees what turned out to be an insurmountable 4-1 lead.

Guthrie kept the Royals in the game, retiring his final nine hitters. His weak-hitting offense even got a run back in the fifth when Cain drove in Gordon with a double.

Still, it was not enough for Guthrie to avoid his sixth straight losing decision and his 11th consecutive start without a win. In the last five, the veteran right-hander has received a total of three runs of support.

“We just couldn’t get that big hit to come through,” the Royals’ Billy Butler said. “We were putting some good at-bats together with no results. Those days are kind of frustrating.”

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Matt Carpenter had a career-high five hits, including the go-ahead double in the 11th inning, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Kansas City Royals 5-2 on Wednesday night to snap a three-game losing streak.

After the Royals rallied with two runs in the ninth, Peter Bourjos worked a one-out walk off Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera (1-2) in the 11th. Carpenter then rapped his double to center field, drawing a roar from a crowd comprised mostly of Cardinals fans.

Allen Craig added a two-run single off Tim Collins later in the inning, and Pat Neshek breezed through the bottom half to end the Royals’ six-game winning streak against National League clubs.

Sam Freeman (1-0) earned the win with a perfect 10th inning.

Carpenter became the first Cardinal to record five hits in a game since Ryan Ludwick on Sept. 4, 2009. He had a part in his club’s first three runs, driving in Mark Ellis in the second inning and scoring on Matt Holliday’s groundout in the seventh

The Cardinals persevered after Adam Wainwright blew a 2-0 lead in the ninth inning. He struck out Eric Hosmer to start it, but the ball squirted away from catcher Yadier Molina, allowing Hosmer to reach first base. Billy Butler followed with a crisp single up the middle.

Trevor Rosenthal, who took the loss Tuesday night, entered in relief and walked Alex Gordon on a full count to load the bases. Salvador Perez followed with a broken-bat groundout to score a run, and Lorenzo Cain’s single up the middle knotted the game 2-all.

The ninth-inning rally wasted a dazzling bounce-back start by Wainwright, who was trying to become the NL’s first nine-game winner. The two-time All-Star did not allow a hit until the sixth inning, stranded three runners on third base and struck out eight while walking just two.

Wainwright wasn’t the only Cardinal to get on track, either.

Molina had hits in his first two at-bats, snapping an 0-for-16 streak. Ellis ended an 0-for-8 stretch with his single in the second that led to the game’s first run.

After St. Louis dropped the first two games of the four-game, two-city set at Busch Stadium, the NL champs rebounded to win for the eighth straight time at Kauffman Stadium.

Jason Vargas kept Kansas City in it most of the night. After leaving the bases loaded in the first inning, he went on strand 10 in a season-high eight innings. The left-hander allowed nine hits and walked two while allowing two runs or fewer for the fifth time in six starts.

— Associated Press —

TORONTO — In a season of solid outings by Mark Buehrle, this stood out as one of his best.

Buehrle pitched eight sharp innings to become baseball’s first 10-game winner, Edwin Encarnacion homered again and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals 4-0 Sunday.

Buehrle (10-1) won his sixth straight decision, his longest streak since a nine-game run in 2005. He gave up six hits, walked one and struck out three as the Blue Jays finished a 10-game homestand at 8-2.

“Today he was as good as he’s been all year,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “He topped off a nice homestand for us.”

Buehrle lowered his ERA to 2.10 and improved to 25-12 lifetime against the Royals.

“He was dynamite,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He’s traditionally tough on us, but he’s 10-1 now, he’s tough on everybody.”

Typically low key, Buehrle said he considered himself fortunate to keep the Royals off the scoreboard.

“It was one of those games where I could have gotten my butt handed to me,” he said. “I was making mistakes and they weren’t making me pay for it.”

Encarnacion matched Mickey Mantle’s AL record with 16 home runs in May, then started off a new month with another drive. He hit a two-run shot off Aaron Crow in the eighth for his 19th homer of the season.

Dioner Navarro also homered as the AL East-leading Blue Jays, who went 21-9 in May, began June with their 17th victory in 21 games.

Jeremy Guthrie (2-5) lost his fifth straight decision, allowing two runs and eight hits in seven innings.

Guthrie has received just one run of support in his past four outings and is winless in 10 starts.

“With all the pitchers, the offense is definitely not living up to the capability it can live up to right now,” Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said.

Toronto loaded the bases with two outs against Guthrie in the first but Juan Francisco flied out.

Navarro hit a solo homer in the second with a drive into the right-field bullpen.

Francisco hit a leadoff double in the fourth, Brett Lawrie singled and Anthony Gose had an RBI grounder.

The Royals hit a pair of leadoff doubles against Buehrle, but he never allowed a runner reach third base. Alcides Escobar doubled to begin the third but was caught in a rundown on Nori Aoki’s sharp grounder to second.

Hosmer doubled to open the sixth but was thrown out at third by shortstop Jose Reyes on Billy Butler’s grounder into the hole.

Hosmer called it “a stupid baserunning mistake,” but his manager was more charitable.

“It was an aggressive mistake,” Yost said. “Reyes did a great job of ranging over and the only play he had was at third.”

— Associated Press —

TORONTO (AP) — Toronto’s booming offense made life easy for Marcus Stroman in his first major league start.

Juan Francisco had three hits and four RBIs, Adam Lind went 3-for-5 with three RBIs and the Blue Jays used a seven-run first inning to rout the Kansas City Royals 12-2 on Saturday.

Stroman said having Toronto’s potent lineup behind him was “like playing a video game with a cheat team.”

“Everyone is like a 100 level,” he said.

The AL East-leading Blue Jays snapped a two-game losing streak and finished May with a 21-9 record. Toronto has won 15 of its past 19.

Stroman (2-0) allowed one run and five hits in six innings. The right-hander walked none and struck out six.

“I thought he was terrific,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “He showed us something.”

Kansas City’s batters were impressed with Stroman, too.

“Power fastball, good slider,” Royals catcher Brett Hayes said. “He got ahead. He’s got good stuff, let’s be honest. That slider is pretty filthy.”

Gibbons said Stroman is certain to get another turn in Toronto’s rotation

“We’d be crazy not to,” he said.

Todd Redmond worked the final three innings for his first save.

The Blue Jays gave Stroman all the support he would need with a 12-batter first inning against Royals right-hander Aaron Brooks, who was also making his first career start. Toronto set a team record when the first eight batters reached safely against Brooks. The Blue Jays had seven straight reach safely to begin a win over Baltimore on Sept. 15, 2007.

Jose Reyes led off with a walk, Melky Cabrera was hit by a pitch, Jose Bautista hit an RBI double, Edwin Encarnacion walked to load the bases and Adam Lind hit an RBI single before Brett Lawrie brought home another run when he was hit by a pitch. Juan Francisco hit a two-run double and Dioner Navarro walked before Brooks finally retired a batter, getting Anthony Gose to ground into a 1-2-3 double play.

Reyes and Cabrera added RBI singles before Michael Mariot came out of the bullpen, getting Bautista to foul out to the catcher on the first pitch to finally end the inning.

“It’s tough, you know, coming up and facing a club like this,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “You’re really kind of hoping for a Cinderalla story, he comes up and give you five good innings. There was just nothing we could do. We knew that we had to try to get as far as we could with him but it just got tough.”

Brooks (0-1) allowed seven runs and five hits in 2/3 of an inning, raising his ERA to 43.88. He walked three and struck out none.

“I just couldn’t control the zone,” Brooks said. “I wasn’t getting ahead of batters. I was trying to do a little too much, I guess.”

Hayes hit an RBI single in the second, but the Blue Jays answered in the bottom half when Lawrie singled home Lind’s one-out double.

Toronto tacked on three more against Mariot in the fourth. Lind hit an RBI double, Lawrie followed with a sacrifice fly and Francisco added an RBI single.

Nori Aoki drove in Kansas City’s second run when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the seventh.

Francisco capped the scoring with an RBI double off Louis Coleman in the eighth.

— Associated Press —

TORONTO (AP) — When Jason Vargas snuffed out a Toronto rally in the first inning, it gave the Kansas City Royals an early lift, one they carried all the way to a second straight win over the Blue Jays.

Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain homered, Vargas won for the first time in three starts and the Royals beat the Blue Jays 6-1 on Friday night.

Vargas (5-2) allowed one run and seven hits in six innings, walked three and struck out seven. He is 2-0 with a 1.60 ERA in six road starts this season.

Vargas allowed a leadoff triple to Jose Reyes in the first, but Reyes had to hold at third on Melky Cabrera’s fly ball to right. Jose Bautista followed with a walk, but Vargas got out of it by getting Edwin Encarnacion and Brett Lawrie to fly out.

“I feel something like that hopefully sets the tone for the game and fires us up,” Vargas said. “We were able to get a run the next inning and keep it moving from there.”

Vargas kept on turning the Blue Jays away whenever they put men on base. Toronto finished 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position and stranded 14 runners.

“Vargas keeps you off balance,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “If you’re sitting on a pitch, you don’t get it. We had some shots but he was better.”

Cain went 3 for 4 and matched a career high with four RBIs, and Gordon reached base three times as the Royals handed Toronto its second consecutive loss following a season-best nine-game winning streak.

“This is more of the offense that we envisioned coming out of spring training,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “We’re not going to be a club that’s going to lead the league in home runs but we’ve got home run power that we haven’t used.”

The home runs were the 23rd and 24th of the season for the Royals, whose total is the lowest in the majors.

Aaron Crow worked the seventh and Kevin Herrera pitched the final two innings, striking out Dioner Navarro for the final out and stranding runners at first and second.

Cain got the Royals on the board with an RBI single off left-hander J.A. Happ in the second, and Gordon followed Butler’s leadoff single by homering on a 3-2 pitch in the fourth.

Bautista replied with a two-out homer in the fifth, but the Royals restored their three-run lead in the sixth. Gordon drew a one-out walk and was almost caught stealing but ended up at second after first baseman Encarnacion dropped Happ’s pickoff throw. The mistake proved costly when Cain drove in Gordon with a two-out single.

Kansas City chased Happ and capped the scoring in the eighth on Cain’s two-out homer.

Happ (4-2) lost for the first time in four starts, allowing a season-worst six runs in 7 2/3 innings. He walked two and struck out six.

“They put some good swings on me,” Happ said. “They were aggressive and they definitely made me pay for my mistakes.”

For the second straight game, Bautista threw out a runner at first from right field. After getting Billy Butler on Thursday, Bautista slid to corral Infante’s shallow fly and gunned a throw to first in the seventh after Infante didn’t initially run out of the box.

“I don’t know if you’ll see a better play in baseball today than that play right there,” Yost said. “Omar hit the ball and lost it, he thought it was foul. For Bautista to come, smother the ball, one, and then still see that he had a play at first base, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a play like that. Tremendous play.”

— Associated Press —